I'm married with two daughters and have been teaching political science in a red state for 19 years. My blogging covers a lot of issues but I'm a progressive kind of guy who tends to focus on political process, conservatism, and religiosity. Living in the Bible Belt gives me a little different though not necessarily more friendly perspective on conservatism. I also get in the occasional sports post.

Friday, April 06, 2007

RSI's Hillary Endorsement

Earlier this week, I posted on this week's ups and downs on political credibility.

Well, I'm about to give up any political street cred I myself ever had in the left blogosphere.

I'm endorsing Hillary.

I've always opposed the war and my economic views would put me on the left-wing of a social democratic party.

All the same, I support Hillary for the Democratic nomination.

In my opinion, Hillary Clinton is the best person for effectively dealing with the Bush disaster in Iraq, the War on Terror, a likely early recession, and the right-wing attack media. Any Democrat in the White House would have to be very strong-minded, enduring, realistic, and skilled in dealing with the present political landscape. I believe Hillary Clinton fits this bill better than Obama or Edwards.

I understand the policy objections to a Hillary presidency. She was wrong to support the initial authorization for the war and wrong not to apologize for her vote. In general, Hillary is more defense oriented and pro-Israel than I would like. But, I also believe that Hillary's defense and foreign policy orientation will be more defensible in the face of sustained right-wing assault than those of Obama and Edwards.

Hillary Clinton is also more pro-business than the other two major Democratic candidates and her domestic policies would involve a broad set of business/labor/consumer compromises that tended to favor business. Yet, I also believe that Hillary will get a better deal for labor and consumer perspectives because she is more likely to get her policies enacted in the face of business opposition than the others.

My best guess is that 2008-2012 is going to be a very tough time in which much of the focus will be on cleaning up the Bush/Cheney mess.

I support Hillary for president because I think she's the best person for such times.

Another sarcastic note on your endorsment, I'm not sure how mush help RSI's endorsement does for Hillary, since most of your readership is Consists of the Morehead State College Republicans. Not exactly like the Firefighters Union endorsement.

Obviously, I have been favorable to Hillary's candidacy. But I've gotten more so over the last week as a result of the Obama caving flap. So, I thought an overt endorsement was appropriate (if pretentious).

Actually, readership at RSI is up more than 300% since December even though it's still very modest. I'm pretty sure that I've started getting traffic from Slate's Fray and other blogs. Given the on-going interest of the MSU College Republicans in RSI, I'm somewhat expecting to see MSU be the first Republican group to endorse a democratic candidate in 2008. That would be a way for you guys to get some national attention. I'd even feature your endorsement here.